About Marie Louise d'Orléans

Marie Louise of Orléans (26 April 1662, Palais Royal, Paris, France - 12 February 1689, Royal Alcazar, Madrid, Spain) Queen Consort of Spain from 1679 to 1689 as the first wife of King Charles II of Spain.

Early Life

Marie Louise was the eldest daughter of Philippe de France, Duc d'Orléans, the younger brother of King Louis XIV, and his first wife, Princess Henrietta Anne of England. As a granddaughter of the king, she was a Petite-Fille de France. She was descended from both the French and English royal families: her paternal grandparents were Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria and her maternal grandparents were Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France. She was also a niece of King Louis XIV of France, King Charles II of England, King James II of England and Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange.

[edit]Childhood

Marie Louise had a happy childhood in France, lived mostly in her father's residences, the Palais Royal in Paris and Château de Saint-Cloud, outside the capital. Marie Louise spent a great deal of her time with her paternal grandmother, Anne of Austria, who doted on her and left the bulk of her fortune to her when she died in 1666. She was also her fathers favourite child.

Marie Louise also visited often with her maternal grandmother, Henrietta Maria of France, at her residence in Colombes, where she met her cousin, the future Queen Anne I of Great Britain, who spent a lot time in France during her childhood. For a time Anne stayed with her cousins at thier homes.

In 1670, when Marie Louise was eight years old, her mother died. The following year, 1671, her father married Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, who became like a mother to Marie Louise and her younger sister, Anne Marie d'Orléans, who became later the Queen of Savoy and Sardinia. During the rest of her life, Marie Louise would maintain an affectionate correspondence with her stepmother.

[edit]Marriage

As she was the most senior unmarried lady at the French court, it was assumed by many that she would marry her cousin, Louis de France, the Dauphin of France. A famous scene ocurred when the sixteen year old girl was told that she was to be the Queen of Spain. Her uncle, Louis XIV, told her:

I could not have done more for my own daughter

[1]

To which Mademoiselle d'Orléans said:

Yes sire, but you could have done more for your niece.

[2]

Her cousin, the Dauphin, later married a distand cousin, Maria Anna Christine Victoria of Bavaria.

Before Marie Louise departed from France for Spain, she went to the convent of Val-de-Grâce where the heart of her mother was housed. It would be the last time she was in Paris. She would never return to the country of her birth.

[edit]Queen of Spain

On 19 November 1679, Marie Louise married King Charles II of Spain, in Quintanapalla, near Burgos, Spain. This was the start of a very lonely existence at the Spanish court. Renowned for her beauty and charm, her new husband fell madly in love with her, a passion that remained with him until the end of his life. [3]The rigid etiquette of the Spanish court and her unsuccessful attempts to become pregnant, however, caused her to suffer from depression.

In early 1688 a witness wrote that, when Charles and Marie Louise went to church to pray for children, they did so with:

with such faith that even the stones would move in order to join them and ask God for the issue they desire.

[edit]Death

One day after horseback riding, the Queen felt a severe pain in the abdomen causing her to lie down the rest of the evening. Tradgically, the queen died the following night, 12 February 1689. According to a witness, on her deathbed Marie Louise said farewell to her husband:

Your Majesty might have other wives, but no one will ever love you as I do.

When Marie Louise died, Charles was completely heartbroken. At the time, there were rumors saying that she had been poisoned at the behest of the dowager queen, Mariana of Austria, her mother-in-law, because Marie Louise had not given birth to any children. In fact, Mariana and Marie Louise were close and the dowager queen was also devastated at the Queen's death. It seems likely that the real cause of Marie Louise's death was appendicitis. She died at age twenty six, the same age as her mother, Princess Henrietta Anne of England, when she died.

[edit]Aftermath

Shortly after the Queen's death, the Spanish ministers began to look for a second wife for the King. The main candidates were the Italian princess Anne Marie Louise of Tuscany and the German princess Maria Anna of Neuburg. Upon showing the portraits of the women to Charles, the King observed:

The lady from Tuscany is pretty and the lady from Neuburg seems not to be ugly either.

But then Charles turned towards a portrait of the deceased Marie Louise and sighing, said: